At least get your story straight!

About the Author

Since the anti-war movement has made such great efforts to spew
their "give peace a chance" propaganda, you would think they would
have taken a little more time to fine-tune their message.

It ought to make sense. It ought to be hard to disprove. And it
ought to at least have a chance of being true. Since America is
being subjected to endless array of television debates, coverage of
"peace protests," etc., it would be helpful if someone could
actually cook up a decent story about why we shouldn't blow Saddam
to smithereens.

Just think about the various claims of the war protesters:

"It's about oil." Makes no sense. If it were about oil,
we'd have Robert Zoellick, the U.S. Trade Representative, in
Baghdad right now negotiating a deal with Saddam Hussein. It would
be far cheaper - in terms of money and lives - to bribe him to
undermine the world oil market than to go to war with him for
oil.

"It's about imperialism." Easily disproved. Just take a
look at Kuwait, most of Europe (including France), South Korea,
Grenada, Panama, and any number of other countries. As I recall,
the U.S. was involved in battles for freedom in all of these places
and they have all maintained their national sovereignty …
precisely because of our involvement.

"It's about Israel." No chance, although it does point
up the unfortunate nexus between the various Israel-haters and the
anti-war movement. Never mind that Israel, alone among the states
of the Middle East, embraces the democracy the anti-war protestors
pretend to hold so dear. Never mind that Israel, which sustained
missile attacks from Iraq in the Gulf War and probably will be
bombed again, has more to lose than any country - even the United
States and Iraq - should war break out.

Or that old standby, "It's about the United Nations and
building multilateral support and the fact that inspections are
working." They're working? Really? Then, where are the 25,000
liters of anthrax? The 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin? The 500
tons of mustard, sarin and VX nerve gas? The 30,000 medium- and
long-range missiles? We know Iraq had these weapons capable of
killing millions of people. We know Iraq was supposed to account
for them. We know this hasn't happened. The process the United
Nations has imposed has failed us, and if our friends in France and
Russia can't appreciate the life-or-death nature of this struggle,
then we go without them.

Which leaves, "Going to war would compromise our moral
position in the world." This is the line promoted by Not In Our
Name, the anti-war group funded by some of our more politically
minded movie stars, among others, and sketched out in the
organization's "statements of conscience" manifestos published as
ads in the New York Times.

Those manifestos equate the horror of the Sept. 11 attacks to
the United States removing Manuel Noriega (who had turned Panama
into a narcotics cartel that preyed on America's youth) to our
standing up to communist imperialism in Vietnam and to our refusal
to let Iraq conquer another sovereign nation - Kuwait - in 1991. We
"earned" the enmity of Osama bin Laden and his foot soldiers with
our arrogance, they say. We "deserved" what we got.

And now? "We won't stand by and let our government commit
horrendous acts around the world," said oh-so-sanctimonious Not In
Our Name spokesman Miles Solay on "The O'Reilly Factor" TV program
recently. "We're holding responsible our government for
perpetrating violence." Well, by his "logic," you can hold me
responsible for the assassination of JFK. I was 2 years old and
nowhere near Dallas that day, but such details don't seem to matter
when Solay and his ilk are doling out blame. And I seem to remember
the Kuwaitis celebrating and thanking us profusely when we
liberated them in 1991.

It's not that there are no meaningful arguments against going to
war. And it's not that there are no principled people in the
anti-war movement. A few seem genuinely distressed about the
unarguable fact that if war begins, innocent people on both sides
will die. However, the vast majority of the vocal "anti-war"
protestors (i.e., Mike Farrell, Janeane Garafalo, Martin Sheen) use
arguments that are less rooted in principle and more rooted in
finding a reason to rip President Bush and make themselves look
smart.

In general, I hate war. But I hate more the fact that there is a
madman in power who tortures children, cuts out the tongues of
those who speak against him, commits mass-murder against ethnic
groups, uses his own people as guinea pigs in chemical weapons
trials, violates peace treaties, condones the torture of Olympians
who don't do well, brutalizes and murders family members, and
stockpiles enough chemical and biological weapons to obliterate
millions of innocent people.

No, it's not about oil, it's not about imperialism, et al. It's
about saving lives, freeing an oppressed people and ridding the
world of another Hitler.

Rebecca
Hagelinis a vice president of theHeritage
Foundation, a research and educational think-tank whose mission is
to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the
principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual
freedom, traditional American values and a strong national defense.
She is also the former vice president of communications for
WorldNetDaily and her 60-second radio commentaries can be heard on
the Salem Communications Network.